The present invention relates to a disk edge polishing machine and a disk edge polishing system, more precisely relates to a disk edge polishing machine, which is capable of polishing an inner edge of a center hole of a disk and an outer edge thereof, and a disk edge polishing system including the disk edge polishing machines.
Glass disks are now used for manufacturing hard disks, laser disks, magnetic disks, etc. Inner edges and outer edges of glass disks must be beveled (rounded) and polished.
Conventionally, high polishing accuracy was not required but, these days, high polishing accuracy is required so as to make memory density higher. If the polishing accuracy is low, glassy dusts are scattered from the edges of the glass disks and badly influence functions of the glass disks, etc. Therefore, the edges of the glass disks must be polished like mirror faces with higher polishing accuracy.
Conventionally, the edges of the glass disks are polished, by a brush, to polish the edges of the glass disks. For example, the conventional method of polishing the edges of the glass disks are executed by the steps of: piling and holding the glass disks, e.g., 100 disks; supplying slurry (liquid abrasive agent including abrasive powder of ceria) to the brush; and rotating or reciprocally moving the brush so as to polish the edges of the glass disks.
However, in the conventional method, polishing speed is very low because of polishing many piled glasses by the brush. And the inner edges and the outer edges are polished by the brush, so polishing time must be longer. Further, it was impossible to polish with the required polishing accuracy (flatness or roughness).